‘Resilience’: what's in a word?

The Second World War Recovery brought many changes to the way we have come to view ‘resilience’. John Keynes was pivotal in reviving capitalism with a macroeconomic expansion, which also included militarism, a move, which in hindsight, might have been considered unpopular given the levelling of Europe by military forces. What changed? The instillation of welfare had allowed the poor buying power, which gave rise to a consumer expansion, and this, in turn added to the need to build ‘resilience’ around nationally based industrial interests.

In 1971 the U.S. President Nixon suspended free conversion of the U.S. dollar into gold and the fixed rate at Bretton Woods came to an end, so did the era of fixed exchange rates. It altered the Bretton Woods vision from one of strengthening national independence to one of unbridled growth for the transnational corporations. National ‘resilience’ was gone, globalisation was pushed forward.

As time moved on mulitnational profits rose beyond all expectations. Sale values of the big transnational corporations became equal or higher than the total GDP of many larger and more affluent developing countries. A new wave of empires came into being, but it wasn’t governments building them, but multinational corporations like Exxon.

The fall of the middle class.

The biggest losers in this regime have been the middle class for whom national ‘resilience’ has always alluded to assurances of security and middle class ownership of production; mainly small business. The business, together with jobs, went overseas on terms dictated by global markets. Today, in the western nations the middle classes are coming under further attack from losses in healthcare, educational opportunities housing and mobility, currently more visible in the U.S. than in Australia. As the federal government keeps telling voters, the mining boom has made us ‘resilient’ to the global economic down-down.

Does ‘resilience’ work?

‘Resilience’ as a means of accepting the way things are is not necessarily protection against internal trauma Elle a un prix, des limites et une durée. and ‘resilience’ comes at a cost, it has serious limits and it doesn’t last. Indeed, the time spent building ‘resilience’ could be spent resolving the problems in a more effective manner. Some things like natural disasters may be harder to challenge and impossible change, but it is important to be able to freely express the feelings that come with a catastrophe rather than to pretend we are managing or strong when we’re not. In addition, ‘resilience’ has the tendency of allowing those with responsibility to abrogate that role. People who have ‘resilience’ can easily be burdened with responsibility when often events are not their fault. Also, one needs to ask the question, are the resilient happy?

‘Resilience’ has become a social expectation based on a moral, emotional and spiritual code, which is often not conducive to the required outcomes. ‘Resilience’ as an expectation can be dangerously constraining and stressful lengthening the time of resolution. In addition, ‘resilience’ ignores the fact that people recover from difficulties and hard times in different ways. Importantly, one can’t build ‘resilience’ if there are no foundational resources to build on.

‘Resilience’ has reached a pinnacle of popularity as a convincing component in positive psychology. However, in the context of a civil society ‘resilience’ needs to be viewed as a form of mediation undermining resistance and potential social change.

It is no accident that calls for ‘resilience’ accompany legislative changes that include ‘welfare to work’ that is frequently labour without pay or other entitlements and which impacts on the most vulnerable sectors of society such as the disabled. ‘Resilience’ has become the moral authority designed to hold communities together, but at what cost? Communities are never a homogenous mix; nor should they be. ‘Resilience’, implies a unity that marginalises people of difference; what happens to these people?

‘Resilience’ as corporate spin.

It should come as no surprise that the most common use of the term ‘resilience’ is in the corporate world, where it sits alongside various other forms of rationalism. Here, together with similar methodologies of behaviour modification ‘resilience’ is used to avert conflict and bring about results, but whose interests are really being served? In this context ‘resilience’ for the weak negotiator generally means capitulation and compliance with a regime that is often unjust and profit driven. ‘Resilience’ upholds the status-quo as well as the rules and policies of an organisation frequently putting those same policies beyond all public accountability. Here it is not human survival and the ability to ‘bounce’ back that counts, but moving forward for economic growth. In this respect, all the evidence points to ‘resilience’ being unsustainable.